City data, report, comparisons and rank

In
today's world, the amount of public information available about your city, or
town, or even village, is simply amazing. Clearly, different people have
different interests, and not everyone wants to know about the same things. How
big a loan can you afford in a new city? Depends on the mortgage rates, but
also on the cost-of-living there. What is the rental housing market like? Are
the schools good? Is the real estate expensive? There are probably as many
questions as people. Even so, it is almost certain that no matter what you want
to know about a place, the information is somewhere out there. Unfortunately,
it is often difficult to find all of the information you need, even for one
city, much less all of them! This is a part of what we have done here on our
site.

Below, we'll describe some of the data which we have collected,
including the sources for the data, and why we think its interesting or
important.

There are plenty of places on the Internet to find all sorts of data. As
everyone knows, all sorts of data is publicly available including information
about population, household income, expenses, level of education, real estate
prices and more.

What else? School information is certainly important. Are the schools in
your town performing well? How much is your school spending? Student/teacher
ratios? If you have children, this information is vital.

In spite of the fact that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has discontinued
providing cost of living statistics and gives only the Consumer Price Index
(CPI), cost of living is a very important factor in choosing a place to
live. After all, once you’ve bought your house you still need to live in
the community!

How about rainfall, or high and low temperatures in the summer and
winter? Air and water quality may be important to some people. Crime
information is also in the public domain. Both violent and non-violent crime
rates can vary significantly from one city to another. Your
tolerance for violent crimes may or may not be the same as for non-violent
crimes.

How about recreation and entertainment? Do you want to know if there are
theatres and restaurants around? Or perhaps, parks and lakes are more important
to you. Isn't it nice to have a park to walk with your kids instead of walking
on the side of the road? And there are some who just want good shopping nearby!

Unfortunately, some of us have to go to work, so the average commute time of
the people in a community might be a factor in deciding where to live. Is it
important for you to live close to a highway or do you want to live far away
from it?

We hope this introduction will let you understand some of the background
behind the information you can see on our web site. Good luck!